Mary Through The Centuries

Explores how Mary has been represented in theology, art, music, and literature throughout the ages

The Virgin Mary has been a figure of inspiration to Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims, artists, musicians, writers, and men and women everywhere. This text examines how Mary has been depicted and venerated through the ages.

This publication was created for the History Book Club in 2005. In comprises two complete books in the one volume. This text looks at two figures from their earliest representations through to their depictions in today's world.

Ingrid Maisch in this study of Mary Magdalene leads her readers throughout the centuries, developing the images of Mary current in each era, showing that she is always a bellwether for the image of woman at a particular time.

Examines the impact of Jesus of Nazareth on Western culture--politically, socially, and economically--and suggests that a study of the various historical representations of Jesus will reveal an essential key to improved cultural understanding

A sweeping, ambitious study of the Virgin Mary’s emergence and role throughout Western historyHow did the Virgin Mary, about whom very little is said in the Gospels, become one of the most powerful and complex religious figures in the world? To arrive at the answers to this far-reaching question, one of our foremost medieval historians, Miri Rubin, investigates the ideas, practices, and images that have developed around the figure of Mary from the earliest decades of Christianity to around the year 1600. Drawing on an extraordinarily wide range of sources—including music, poetry, theology, art, scripture, and miracle tales—Rubin reveals how Mary became so embedded in our culture that it is impossible to conceive of Western history without her.In her rise to global prominence, Mary was continually remade and reimagined by wave after wave of devotees. Rubin shows how early Christians endowed Mary with a fine ancestry; why in early medieval Europe her roles as mother, bride, and companion came to the fore; and how the focus later shifted to her humanity and unparalleled purity. She also explores how indigenous people in Central America, Africa, and Asia remade Mary and so fit her into their own cultures.Beautifully written and finely illustrated, this book is a triumph of sympathy and intelligence. It demonstrates Mary’s endless capacity to inspire and her profound presence in Christian cultures and beyond.

An overlooked aspect of the iconography of the Annunciation investigated - Mary's book.

This book presents the richness of the traditions about Mary, yet at the same time offers crtical historical, theogical, and cultural analysis that allows the reader to take a fresh look at Mary with contemporary questions in mind.